"The bright sun overhead was leaning down hard. The heat on my skin felt like I was standing too close to a fire. Each step took patience, as I tried to find footholds on the softening snow."

"We'd been at it for hours, trying to cross a broad alpine valley between two sharp ridges. I looked up for a moment to fill my lungs and adjust the heavy pack. The snowfield stretched into the distance, broken only by bare fields of scree. For a moment, I felt like I was walking in some alien world."

"Then, I realized I was."

"I'm spending the month of June in Seattle working on one paper about astrobiology and the Anthropocene and another about the death of stars, like the sun. But, last weekend I went backpacking with two old friends through Garibaldi Provincial Park in British Columbia. . ."